Monday, December 22, 2014

We Need a Little Christmas – NOW!

Paintings of the Birth of Christ, Gerard van Honthorst, 1622
                We say that Advent is supposed to be a time of “joyful expectation.”  Well, I don’t know about you, but my Advent has been downright depressing.  It started with the news of yet another parishioner’s cancer diagnosis.  Then a friend was scheduled for emergency back surgery three days before Christmas.  Another friend’s daughter continues her struggle with a rare, painful autoinflammatory disorder.  Last Wednesday, my nephew, Brian, was admitted to the hospital with a stomach flu that’s complicated by his colectomy.  (You may recall that Brian was hospitalized last Christmas, so we’re praying hard that he’ll be home this year.)  That same day, my mother and I hastened to Texas to visit my Uncle Bob, whose health is failing.  And if that weren't enough, three policemen were gunned down in cold-blood over the weekend.  Enough already.  We need a little Christmas – NOW!

                I love Christmas.  I love the candles in the window and the carols at the spinet.  I love the gift-giving and gift-receiving.  I love the fruit cake, the family and the fellowship.  I love Christmas Mass – whether it’s the 4 pm Mass where both the Church and the parish hall are packed tighter than Santa’s sleigh, or Midnight Mass with all the smells and bells.  I love coming home from Midnight Mass with the children nestled all snug in their beds, while I quietly place baby Jesus and the “Gloria” angel in our nativity.  But most of all, I love what Christmas brings – faith, hope, joy and peace.  We could use a little of each, right now.

                Faith is a gift from God by which we’re invited to accept and respond to the Truth that God has revealed to us.  Faith teaches us to trust God, to believe that God is eternally faithful – that he keeps his promises.  Through faith, Christmas invites us to trust that God is with us in our sickness and in our pain, that his little angel is sitting on our shoulder. 

                Hope is an attitude based on positive expectations.  Hope gives us an outlook that transcends this world, a snappy, happy-ever-after assurance that “all shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.”[1]  Christmas gives us the hope of eternal life that encourages us to persevere through the struggles of this life, confident “that no eye has seen, no ear has heard and no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.”[2] 

                Joy is a sharing in God’s life.  Joy persists through sorrow and suffering; joy sustains us and encourages us to live each living day; joy carries us into the fullness of God’s eternal joy.  Christmas delivers the joyful message that God loves us so much that he sent “his own Son into the dysfunction of the world so that he might gather that world into the bliss of the divine life.”[3]

                Peace is a state of harmony and tranquility.  In peace, we live without fear, conflict or violence.  Christmas inaugurates the reign of the Prince of Peace, allowing us to sleep in heavenly peace.

                At prayer this morning at Immaculate Conception School, the children gathered around the Advent Wreath as their Vice Principal lit the candles symbolizing the four weeks of Advent.  As she lit each candle, Diane reminded the children what each candle represents:  faith, hope, joy and peace.  She reminded me, too.  That’s exactly what I needed to face the challenges this past month has thrown at me.  We all need faith, hope, joy and peace.  We all need a little Christmas – NOW!


Click here to listen to "We Need A Little Christmas" from the musical Mame.


[1] Julian of Norwich, The Showings.
[2] 1 Corinthians 2: 9.
[3] Robert Barron, The Strangest Way:  Walking the Christian Path (Maryknoll, Orbis, 2002) at 31.

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